This is refreshing:
The Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from Christian groups that challenged a discrimination policy at California state universities.
The justices on Monday are leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling that found that the policy doesn’t violate the Constitution. The policy says officially recognized campus groups can’t discriminate based on religion or sexual orientation.
Basically, what these folks wanted was not their constitutional rights, but special rights to violate school policy and have an officially recognized campus group be given an exception to be bigots. It’s all outlined in conservapedia’s explanation of the 1st Amendment.
Short Bus Bully
Shorter Wingnut: The Constitution applies to ME not THEE.
Martin
This ban on curbstomping gays is an assault on our religious liberty!
wrb
How do you even organize a good curbstop if there is a gay in your organization?
Might he not warn them?
Maybe even try to make everyone feel bad?
It isn’t fair.
Brachiator
I’m sure Santorum will call for the impeachment of all these librul activist judges.
Mitts will double down and call for the abolition of the Supreme Court.
Chris
As if their own proud, private, “Christian” universities, which mostly exist for the sole purpose of giving them a place to discriminate against whoever they want, weren’t enough. No, EVERYBODY has to indulge them now.
The Other Chuck
@Brachiator:
Newt will of course promise to fire the offending justices.
Roger Moore
Of course they have a right to do whatever their religion tells them. That’s why they put the First Amendment first; it’s supposed to trump all the other ones./wingnut.
Baud
Good result, but not the last word on the issue. The Court doesn’t create precedent when it declines to hear a case, so expect the anti-gay forces to try again.
JPL
So does the Constitution allow the private schools to discriminate? hmmmm
tcolberg
Just based on the quotation Cole posted, I’m guessing that the SCOTUS feels like taking the case would have been a waste of time, considering their 2010 decision affirming that UC Hastings had the right to enforce a nondiscrimination policy on student groups.
Edit: Grabbing the citation for the law geeks:
Christian Legal Soc. Chapter of the Univ. of Cal., Hastings Coll. of the Law v. Martinez, 130 S. Ct. 2971 (2010).
Tonal Crow
Hmm, they couldn’t get even 4 justices to vote to grant cert on this case.
Interesting, given that there are four far-right justices: Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas.
Tonal Crow
@JPL:
Yes. The Constitution (other than the 13th Amendment) binds the federal government and the states, not private entities (except in very restricted circumstances generally involving protests and private areas that substitute for public ones, e.g., large malls).
capt
I have to say I am surprised, I have no faith in this SCOTUS. I expect them to make me like them less.
KG
@The Other Chuck: only after subpoenaing them and making them explain their decision… because they don’t do that already.
David Koch
War on religion!
Tonal Crow
@The Other Chuck:
That means at least 6 of the 9, since it takes only 4 to grant cert.
KG
@Tonal Crow: unless the private university takes federal or state money, which most of them do. So, USC, Notre Dame, and the like, have to play mostly by the same rules. IIRC, there was some hay made about Bob Jones university in the 2000 election because they didn’t take no federal money so they could have their anti-interracial relationship rules.
dogwood
I’m interested to see what they do with the Montana Supreme Court’s big FU to the Citizens United decision.
Baud
@KG:
In that case, it’s not the constitution but federal statutes that bar discrimination.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT (sorry I didn’t get it in the last thread before it died) but is anyone else completely gobsmacked at the ING ads running on MSNBC right now? The “your number” ads, and all of the numbers are one million plus? Are they really trying to appeal to the majority of viewers, you know the average viewer has about $100.00 in their savings account at age 50 and they are told they need to come up with 1 million in order to retire? Basically the message is we are all going to work til we die. (Apologies if I have mentioned this before).
Keith
President Newt would say the decision is obviously unconstitutional (and fundamentally secular) and thus will be ignored. Then he’ll polish off a bag of Milano cookies.
Tonal Crow
Checking the Court website, there wasn’t even a dissent from the denial of cert. Gingrich is going to have to remove the entire Court!
Tonal Crow
@KG:
No. Private entities are generally not bound by the Constitution. They are, however, bound by federal law, like the Civil Rights Acts. Those statutes apply irrespective of whether an entity receives federal money. That said, conditions are always applied to entities that take federal money, too.
Comrade Dread
They’re still free to form their own private organizations, they just won’t have the same access to meeting on campus or being able to post meeting notices on campus.
Given the widespread adoption of social media, this doesn’t seem all the crippling for them.
But I think they’re missing an opportunity to engage gays and lesbians who have an interest in spiritual things. Folks are a lot more open to what you have to say if you’re actually willing to welcome them into your group and treat them like human beings.
Snowwy
@Tonal Crow: Thomas must have been asleep again, then.
ChrisB
Speaking of the Court, did anyone see this article today about how Rehnquist lied about his support for Plessy v. Ferguson when nominated for the Court and for Chief Justice:
nytimes.com/2012/03/20/us/new-look-at-an-old-memo-casts-more-doubt-on-rehnquist.html?_r=1&ref=u…
It’s pretty damning, particularly this key quote:
“The fact that a justice and a chief justice lied in order to advance himself,” Mr. Prettyman said, referring to Chief Justice Rehnquist in his confirmation hearings, “the fact that he thought the way he did about Brown — which was that it would be a national disgrace — those facts alone justify an exploration of what happened.”
beergoggles
I read this earlier today and I laughed and started singing some cee lo “fuck you, and fuck ur jebus too”..
But then I got to thinking, college gay groups need to now allow bigoted ass fundie xtians into their groups now? wtf..
SiubhanDuinne
@Keith:
You say that like it’s wrong.
RSA
@Comrade Dread:
But they’re righteous Christians! I mean, can you imagine Jesus hanging out with, say, a prostitute?
burnspbesq
@SiubhanDuinne:
If that bag of Milanos comes between a half dozen Krispy Kremes and two Double Quarter Pounders, the cumulative effect can be nasty. Ol’ Newton Leroy doesn’t look like he ever uses the words “portion” and “control” in the same sentence.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Basically, what these folks wanted was not their constitutional rights, but special rights to violate school policy and have an officially recognized campus group be given an exception to be bigots. It’s all outlined in conservapedia’s explanation of the 1st Amendment.
That would be this:
So it is perfectly alright for Christians to discriminate against gays as long as all other religions are allowed to discriminate against gays…
Geeno
@beergoggles: I don’t see them wanting to any of teh ghey on them. Fundie membership in LBGT groups is unlikely to be an issue. AND groups can dismiss a disruptive member for cause. So if one did join, they’d have to behave.
beergoggles
@Geeno:
Small mercies. I was just picturing a scenario where a bunch of fundies joined the gay group and was sufficiently in the majority to change the founding purpose of the group.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Damn I hate the blockquote system here.
The two paras under “conservative interpretation’ are quoted from Conservapedia, the last snark is my own
Geeno
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
1. Free exercise cannot be construed to grant one immunity from otherwise neutral rules/laws. If the rule that applies to all is “no discrimination”, they can’t get out of it saying “but out faith says …”. By that logic someone could practice religious human sacrifice and be immune to murder charges.
2. The establishment clause forces the government in to one of three choices.
Allow ALL expression – and you KNOW some guy will erect a thirty foot tall penis in the public square and call it his holy icon.
Get in to the business of deciding what is a religion and what is not – which would seem to violate the spirit of the establishment clause itself.
Allow NO expression – very easy to understand and enforce. No nasty gray areas.
Historically the government has allowed ALL, until the penis guy inevitably shows up. Then they’re forced in to NO.
It doesn’t really have a lot to do with what liberals “allow”. The very idea of liberals getting the call on something like this in the US is kind of far fetched.
Geeno
Crud – hopefully this won’t get moderated:
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
1. Free exercise cannot be construed to grant one immunity from otherwise neutral rules/laws. If the rule that applies to all is “no discrimination”, they can’t get out of it saying “but out faith says …”. By that logic someone could practice religious human sacrifice and be immune to murder charges.
2. The establishment clause forces the government in to one of three choices.
Allow ALL expression – and you KNOW some guy will erect a thirty foot tall pen1s in the public square and call it his holy icon.
Get in to the business of deciding what is a religion and what is not – which would seem to violate the spirit of the establishment clause itself.
Allow NO expression – very easy to understand and enforce. No nasty gray areas.
Historically the government has allowed ALL, until the pen1s guy inevitably shows up. Then they’re forced in to NO.
It doesn’t really have a lot to do with what liberals “allow”. The very idea of liberals getting the call on something like this in the US is kind of far fetched.
Ah, Phoenecian makes clear those were not his/her words, apologies. I thought that sounded odd coming from you.
amk
still fucked up formatting of the site.
Geeno
@beergoggles: A lot of them are closet cases; I can’t see them taking the risk.
Joseph Nobles
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
Correct in the second half, Zombie Reagan, but not the first. The governmental tyranny is of someone with different religious beliefs than you who wishes to use government to force them upon you. So, yes, the First Amendment was written to protect the people of this country from religious values tyrannically forced upon them.
Thanks for this quote, Phoenician. It’s like mother’s milk for people to obscure what they are arguing for by cloaking it in some seemingly different subject.
The War Between the States was over states’ rights! States’ rights to do what exactly?
Obamacare is violating my religious values! That allow you to discriminate against those who don’t hold your beliefs, right?
And on and on…
carolina
Two things about the denial of cert at this point:
The 9th Circuit sent this back to the district court to determine if the policy was applied in a discriminatory fashion. For example, if these groups were not eligible, but it is determined that a Catholic group was granted official status and has a requirement that all members of the group be members in good standing with the Church, then the groups could win either at the trial court or on appeal because the policy would be unconstitutional, or discriminatory, as applied. And they should, IMO. If you have a policy that says you can’t discriminate based on religion, that has to apply to all religious groups equally.
And regardless of the outcome, the Supreme Court could take the appeal up at that point. CLS v. Martinez doesn’t reach the issue presented in this case because of a strange situation where the CLS plaintiffs stipulated to facts that ended up taking a couple of issues off the table, and if a different factual pattern comes up, Kennedy could be persuaded and Roberts could write another opinion stating that precedent isn’t being overturned. From a political perspective, why risk reversing (at least in the minds of most people) a decision from a couple of years ago when you can let things simmer for a while.
mainmati
While this is a surprising and pleasant victory, Roberts wants his rulings to be as narrow as possible when it comes to rights so that the activist Conservative bloc can wield their sword when the opportunity presents itself.
jrg
Maybe, but who would the fundies be better than then? The nice thing about shitting on other people to feel better about yourself is that it requires very little effort.
I’ll bet if 100 fundies read this, about 50 of them would have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.
mary
I grew up in a very Catholic neighborhood a long time ago. The ideal was to develope a parallel system so that a pious Catholic would not have to be too involved with the world. Catholic schools, colleges, hospitals, and a strong network among parishioners enabled many who chose to live ‘apart from the world’. I really wish the ‘pious’ (whether Catholic or evangelicals) would go back to this ideal and leave the rest of us alone.
TenguPhule
But hard work gets in the way of the ass-raping, dontcha know?